Riz Ahmed Can’t Save A Very Messy ‘Encounter’ – [Telluride Review]

Encounter is more of a promising indication of things to come from rising star Riz Ahmed and British director Michael Pearce than a satisfying work in its own right. A not-entirely-felicitous combination of family melodrama and sci-fi bug invasion, the roots of this Amazon feature stretch straight back to the paranoia-saturated fantastical thrillers of the 1950s, albeit with more realistic effects, violence and profanity.

now. There were a lot of candy ransoms being played.” Ahmed recounted one scene for the movie that involved a night shoot on a mountain.

“Encounter” star Riz Ahmed says he was drawn to Michael Pearce’s film because he wanted to add an “extra layer” to the portrayal of an American marine who might not “look like” him.“I think the script in its original form was conceived for a different kind of actor than perhaps someone like me, because in a nutshell when you think of an American marine, you might not initially think of an actor who looks like me,” Ahmed said in a virtual interview with TheWrap editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman

In writer-director Stephen Karam’s feature debut, the dark horror-comedy “The Humans,” it’s not so much a bump in the night or the creak in the door that can rupture an untapped fear. Those are merely the externalized notes that grant music to the ever-present existential dread.

British director Michael Pearce has come up with a bold and nervy puzzle in “Encounter,“ a sci-fi/character study hybrid that premiered at Telluride last week and came to the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday.

If an alien came to Earth and wanted to know what the deal is with all these big, wet things crisscrossing the land, then Jennifer Peedom’s new documentary “River” would surely be of assistance. Its seventy-four minutes float by with the hazy ambiance that compels critics to dust off the time-honored descriptor of “tone poem,” the camera content to gaze at the magnificence of the natural world.

British actor Riz Ahmed is leading a new sci-fi pic “Encounter” from director Michael Pearce (“Beast“), where he plays a decorated Marine who goes on a rescue mission to save his two sons from an alien threat. As things get more dangerous, the youngsters will have to leave their childhoods behind them.

Alexandre Moratto’s “7 Prisoners” opens on a happy family dinner in rural Brazil. Mateus (Christian Malheiros) is leaving home for a work opportunity in São Paulo.

Riz Ahmed’s latest movie required a physical transformation unlike anything he’d ever undergone.

Riz Ahmed had to take on a physical challenge for his new role in. In the film, the 38-year-old Oscar-nominated actor, who co-wrote the film, is playing London-born Pakistani rapper Zed, who is losing his motor functions due to an autoimmune disease. Part of taking on this role was undergoing extreme weight loss. «I lost 10 kilos [about 22 pounds] in three weeks,» Ahmed told.

Riz Ahmed underwent an intense transformation for his role in the new movie Mogul Mowgli and he’s opening up about dropping 22 pounds to play Zed.

TELLURIDE – If you’re a cat lover, as I admittedly am, it almost goes without saying that a feline-themed film should pique your interest. And when it comes to a prestige biopic about influential artist Louis Wain, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy, Andrea Riseborough, and Toby Jones? Well, in theory, those elements should combine into a delectable portion of cinephile catnip.

Directors mining their lives for a story is nothing new, but it’s always exciting to see that premise connect with viewers beyond its maker. Such were the audience reactions to Kenneth Branagh’s stirring revisit to the Belfast of his childhood: there were sobs, gasps, and so much laughter.

In the form-expanding documentaries of Robert Greene, the artifice of performance clears a path with higher emotional truth waiting at its summit. Still, the distance between the two has varied.

Swaddled in the vastness of the mountainous American West, two young women command the terrain and their own destinies in Emelie Mahdavian’s picturesque documentary “Bitterbrush.” The sturdy duo at the helm, Hollyn Patterson and Colie Moline, are, despite their youthful age, veteran hired farmhands heading on a four-month commitment in a remote area to herd cattle.

TELLURIDE – Since it first debuted in 1897, Edmond Rostand’s original play “Cyrano de Bergerac” has been staged all over the world, adapted into numerous films, and seen its ingenious narrative used in almost every form of modern media. For a new version to triumph, it needs to equal or, hopefully, transcend what came before.

This week many people will head to the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing, New York, to attend matches of the U.S. Open tennis tournament.

As its short declarative title implies, Janet Tobias and John Hoffman’s documentary “Fauci” is single-minded in its pursuit of exploring and humanizing the now (in)famous director of the National Institutes of Health.

Tomris Laffly In the creepy opening sequence of “Encounter,” a taut, genre-bending psychological thriller with nonstop drive, an asteroid crashes into Planet Earth before the title even appears.